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The Management of
Agricultural Exports
9. In many developing countries,
the ways in which agrarian policies have managed the export of agricultural
production have often further encouraged the process of the concentration of
land in the hands of the few.
Price control policies have been
adopted for certain products, favouring large
agro-industrial concerns and export growers, but penalizing small growers
producing traditional farm products.(9) Other policies have meant that
the whole infrastructure and service system tends to be run in the interests of
large farmers. In yet other cases, tax policies concerning agriculture have
worked to the profit of certain landowners (individual physical persons or
companies), allowing them to recoup fixed investments in a relatively short
time, either by not envisaging progressive taxes or in some way facilitating
tax evasion. Lastly, certain policies facilitating loans to the agricultural
sector have distorted price relations between land and work.
All this has encouraged a process
of accumulation based on investment in land, with small farmers, who are often
on the sidelines of the land market, being excluded from the process.
The rise in land prices and the
fall in the supply of jobs owing to agricultural mechanization have made access
to credit, and hence the acquisition of land, difficult for small farmers if
they are not grouped in associations.
10. The aim of reducing
international debt through exports can lead to a fall in the standard of living
of small farmers, who often do not produce export items.
The lack of a public service of
agricultural training prevents such farmers, who of necessity engage in a predominantly subsistence-style farming using traditional
techniques, from acquiring the necessary technical training for a
correct use of the cultivation techniques required by new products. They are
poorly integrated into the market, and their difficulties in gaining access to
credit curtail their power to purchase the inputs required by new techniques.
Poor knowledge of the market means that they can neither keep abreast of trends
in product prices nor reach the quality required for export.
If the market prompts small
farmers to grow export crops, this often takes place at the expense of
production intended mainly for their own consumption, thus putting farming
families at considerable risk. Unfavourable climatic
or market conditions can lead to a vicious circle of hunger, so that such
families contract debts that then force them to give up ownership of their land.
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